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Definition of fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5447 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes  Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 33 of 39 02 October 2010 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cesare, have you considered putting this post on websites like Lang-8 or Livemocha, where it can be corrected by natives? If you do that, you will see how many mistakes you make. I'm sorry, but I am also of the opinion that you are claiming to have much higher level in your languages than you actually do. I haven't seen your videos because you removed them, but I could've told you about your Serbian/Croatian (by the way, let's face it: from the language learning point of view - it's one language, no need to count that twice, unless you are running for the Serbian/Croatian government :D ). I'm wondering in how many languages did you have your level assessed by a native speaker/tutor?
This will probably be hair-splitting, but I've always been puzzled by this request of "most/all subjects". What about subjects that I can't talk about in my native language simply because I learned them in the foreign language? In my case two of many examples would be lab equipment and car parts - I had neither worked in a lab or owned a car before I came to NZ, so I learned pretty much everything about these topics in English. Not to mention the whole scientific fields I wouldn't be able to talk about in Serbian with fluidity, because I don't know specific terms. One more recent example is that, thanks to a fantastic Spanish blogger, I can talk about functioning of the thermonuclear weapons in Spanish better than in any other language :). On the other hand, thanks to a ridiculous education system (remains of the communist system) that tends to teach you everything about everything, I have this bunch of knowledge in my head, in Serbian, about topics I just have no desire to talk about in any language... I just really like the definition someone offered about being able to talk about topics you would like to talk about (plus, of course, those everyday things needed to get around independently). 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5692 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 34 of 39 02 October 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I don't think this is a question of linguistic fluency so much as cultural fluency, and to be particular, pop-culture fluency. Being a native speaker of American English, I of course consider myself to speak English "fluently" – and yet there are innumerable US cultural references that go right over my head. I never watched television as a kid (and rarely watch it now), didn't go to school until I was 15, and for the longest time didn't listen to any music that was made during my lifetime (since 1987). This means that even today, with the help of the internet to educate me about the latest memes and so on, I often have no clue what more "culturally literate" – or I should really say, "POP-culturally literate" people are talking about.
Personally, I don't think it's a problem. I'd rather be able to discuss 19th-century British ghost stories/the 1950s-60s development of rock 'n' roll/the infuriating genius of Socrates (all of which I can do, to one level or another) than be able to sing the theme song from "Friends" or "Twilight Zone," know who Justin Bieber is, quote lines from the latest Judd Apatow disaster, or have any concept of the humor behind "Keyboard Cat." In my social life, I tend to gravitate towards people who share (or at least appreciate) some of the same quirky cultural references that I do. For example (a silly example, but it illustrates my point perfectly), two of my best friends and I like to make odd melodic cooing sounds at each other which wouldn't be recognized by anyone who didn't know the Australian children's TV show "Clangers." As for gaining this type of pop-culture fluency in a foreign language/culture, I think it's absolutely possible, but takes a lot of time and depends on your passion for the culture (not just the language but the CULTURE) in question. For instance, I'm absolutely in love with everything German, so I've been slowly developing my German cultural fluency. For modern pop culture, I read the news, listen to German pop/rock/rap/folk music, watch German TV shows and movies, and research modern figures of German culture who interest me. For more classic cultural fluency, I read German literature and study its history, see German operas and listen to classical German music. Sure, it takes a lot of work, because I'm here in the US (most of the time), but it does pay off, slowly but surely.
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| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6471 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 35 of 39 02 October 2010 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You're right. Fluency doesn't necessarily imply "perfectly". But your Spanish is horrible -- I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to sugar-coat it anymore -- just like your Latin. It is not fluent, proficient, or any positive word one could use to describe it. And it's fine not to be particularly good at Spanish... I mean, when I started out, my Spanish was horrible too. The difference is, I was aware of this. Sure, you could probably read some stuff written in Spanish, the same way I can read some stuff written in Italian having studied that language only minimally. But I wouldn't claim to have any real proficiency in Italian.
Well, what you said wasn't Spanish. - Kef Edited by furrykef on 02 October 2010 at 10:29pm 15 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5447 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 36 of 39 02 October 2010 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cesare, ja ne znam šta si ti naučio za jednu noć, ali ovo što si napisao nije ni srpski ni hrvatski. Ovo je neki miks balkanskih jezika napisan na ćirilici gde bukvalno ni jedna konstrukcija nije pravilna (da i ne pominjem da reči 'takće', 'v', 'edan' i 'noč' ne postoje u srpskom i hrvatskom). I can understand what you meant because it is written down so I could read it couple of times, but if you are to tell me this sentence in the conversation - that conversation certainly wouldn't be fluent. Cesare, since I could understand all that you have written in Spanish, Russian and S/C, but also to see that you are making tons of mistakes, I would say that you certainly could 'get by' in these languages (at least in some situations). To be able to get by in so many languages (if your other ones are at the same level) - is truly amazing achievement. There is no need to waste your time trying to prove that you are fluent in all of them (because I can tell you for some of them - you are not). As Volte said, it would be better if you assess your level correctly and concentrate on improving (since you definitely possess a remarkable potential). Good luck. Edited by Aineko on 02 October 2010 at 10:44pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6141 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 37 of 39 02 October 2010 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Oh dear. I can't even believe we're still wasting our time on this. From his videos and his posts here it's obvious that Cesare erroneously and stubbornly thinks that he can speak these languages, despite our best attempts at reasoning with him. I don’t think anything we say at this point is going to change his mind, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with him at all. In fact, I vehemently disagree, but I think I've already made that clear.
And just because I can’t stand for this nonsense, I’ll post the corrections to his recent comments in other languages: ITALIAN
“Please speak Italian to me and I’ll see how you write [it].” Should be: Parla Italiano a me per favore, e vedrò come lo scrivi tu. [EDIT: I don't know why, but the website keeps automatically capitalizing the 'I' in italiano. It was not intentional.]
“Also, I learned Italian when I was little and I know it very well. My Italian is not bad!” Should be: Anche, ho appreso (better: imparato) l’italiano quando ero piccolo e lo parlo molto bene. Il mio Italiano non è cattivo! SPANISH
“Everyone, I also speak Spanish fluently. If you say that you can’t understand this [message], you don’t know Spanish. I have spoken [been able to speak] Spanish for one year, and I studied the language a lot. I’m sorry but I don’t have the Spanish keyboard.” Should be: Todos, también hablo español con fluidez. Si dicen que no pueden entender este mensaje, no saben español. Hablo español desde hace un año, y estudiaba mucho el idioma. Lo siento pero no tengo el teclado español.
“Everyone, you don’t understand now (?). Fluency is knowing the majority of the language (?), but it isn’t perfection. End.” Should be: Todos, no entienden ahora. La fluidez es saber la mayoridad del idioma, pero no es la perfección. Fin.
“I hope everyone can understand.” Should be: Espero que todos puedan entender.
This sentence makes no sense to me whatsoever. The literal translation would be something like “I don’t only want because my Spanish doesn’t like you.” I have no idea what he was trying to say. UNKNOWN
This is a garbled nonsense mix of Spanish and Italian. It doesn’t make sense from either perspective. RUSSIAN My Russian is limited but I can still detect several very elementary errors in your text:
“Also, my Russian is very good since I speak a lot with Russians when I work with Russians. If you don’t understand this, you don’t know Russian.” Should be (I’ve only corrected things that I’m 100% sure about; there might be more errors than I noticed): Также, мой русский очень хорошо так как я говорю много русский когда я работаю с русскиями. Если вы не понимаете это, вы не знаете русский.
“Sorry, it’s just that I speak Russian with many people. I also took a course on LiveMocha. But I’m sorry for my bad attitude.” Should be (same policy as above): Извините, это просто что я говорю русский с многими людьми. Также я взял курс на ЛайвМока. Но извините за мое плохое отношение. SERBO-CROATIAN
Cesare, thanks for bringing it to my attention that I speak Serbo-Croatian! I was unaware of this previously, but since I can understand your message here with little problem, I obviously speak it fluently. I’ll just go add it to my profile then… Anyways, now that I've gotten that out of my system, my personal opinion is that this thread should be closed since it serves little or no purpose whatsoever anymore. Edited by ellasevia on 02 October 2010 at 11:11pm 13 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5447 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 38 of 39 02 October 2010 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
haha, don't add it just yet, since (as I said in the part I wrote in Serbian) - this is neither Serbian nor Croatian but some mix of all Balkan languages (which looks like Bulgarian-Serbo-Macedonian-Croatian-wanna be), written in Cyrillic. Here is the correct version: Такође, ја сам научио српски и хрватски за једну ноћ. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7014 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 39 02 October 2010 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I've read some bad Spanish, Italian and Russian before, but these are the best examples of how not to write and claim fluency at the same time. It's time that this thread was laid to rest now.
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